


The Most Beautiful Mistake

by posingasme



Series: Supernatural Fatherhood [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, New Baby, Parent Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21638254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme
Summary: Don’t tell Dean she’s a mistake. She’s his baby.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Supernatural Fatherhood [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1049696
Comments: 16
Kudos: 48





	1. The Child is His

His brother was about to become Uncle Sammy. 

The four syllables slammed into his heart in time with the pounding. Uncle. Sammy. 

This was what they had planned for. This was it. 

Uncle Sammy. 

Dean took a deep breath, and pushed into the room where the woman he barely knew was in labor, and made himself smile for her. 

“Lea? It’s all going to be okay. I promise.” He would make it okay. He had promised to make it okay, from the beginning. This was his child. He would make it all okay. 

Lea glowered at him furiously. He looked away. He was doing this to her. He had asked this of her. And after today, it would just be him and the child. Lea didn’t want this. She was angry and she had done her part, and now she wanted out. 

“If you change your mind-“

“I won’t. It’s all yours. Yours and Uncle Sammy’s,” she had spat back with sarcastic venom. 

She had done her part. And he believed her that she would not change her mind. If she did, well, he had planned for that too, without much hope. But Lea wanted out, and he would let her go. 

The child was his. 

Sam had fought him. Like a madman, he had fought him. Dean was proud of how hard the kid had fought. But in the end, he was just a kid, and Dean had exerted his will over the situation, and once Dean had made the call, Sam had capitulated miserably. And now Sam was away at school, and it was just Dean, and that was how Dean had planned it too. 

The child was his. 

Sam hadn’t fought because Dean was wrong, of course. Dean wasn’t wrong. Sam had fought because it still wasn’t right, and Dean couldn’t really argue about that. But what was right and what was smart were at odds here, and Dean was more interested in what was smart. Anyway, lying came as naturally as breathing to Dean. Sam had once said it was like lying was Dean’s first language. So he formed this most important of lies. It would be true soon enough. 

The child was his. 

Hours ticked by, but they were all in a blur for Dean. He did what he could for Lea, and stood out of the way for the rest of it. This was Lea’s last job, and she did it admirably. 

And then it was done, and the longest day of Dean’s life finally became the most incredible. 

“She’s...so tiny,” he had breathed out. 

The old nurse smiled at him kindly. “That’s how they start, Dean. Then you grow them big and strong.”

He couldn’t take his eyes off the little person in his arms, but he spoke to the nurse. “She really doesn’t want to hold her? Not even for a minute?”

“No. She’s done, honey. She did what she said she would do. Let her be done.”

He nodded slowly, and a tangle of fear encircled his windpipe. “Right. That was the plan. And...she’s okay?”

“She will be. They’re going to try to talk her into some counseling. And they have her on a watch tonight. Just to be sure.”

“I’m glad,” he choked out. “The doctor told me she would be really emotional and her hormones and...I don’t want her to do anything to hurt herself. That’s what she…she…”

“I know, honey. She’ll be all right. She’s got people looking out for her. And you literally have your hands full yourself. It’s time to let someone else take care of Lea. You take care of this little one, and yourself. Did you decide on a name?”

Robert John if it was a boy. And if it was a girl…

“Mary Ellen. Her name is Ellie.”

The nurse gave him that kind smile, and stepped away to fill out the rest of the paperwork, while Dean stared into the eyes of the future.


	2. Just Rock

“Sammy, stop. You can’t come home in the middle of finals week. It’s just three more days. Okay? No, stop. Listen to me. That makes this all for nothing if you ditch your finals! So calm down and be the smart one here.”

Sam’s angry huffing was slowing down, but he was still shaking his head at the camera. “It’s not right,” he said for the thousandth time. “I should have been there for her.”

“Man, she didn’t want you there. She didn’t even want me there, but I had to be. Okay? So quit beating yourself up. The decision wasn’t yours. We took it out of your hands. You can be angry with me, but don’t be angry with her, and especially not with you.”

His brother’s tear-streaked face was tight with emotion. “Yeah. You keep saying that. But I’m the one that screwed up, Dean. It’s my mistake-“

“It’s not a mistake, Sam. You can’t…” He smiled softly, and looked down at the sleeping child in his arms. “You can’t look at this little thing and call any of it a mistake. Okay? Look, you’ll be here in a few days. Kick those exams in the ass and get as much rest as you can before then. I’ll need your help, Uncle Sammy.”

He shouldn’t have said it. Sam immediately burst into fresh tears. But he nodded, and took on a new look of determination. “Yeah. Okay. You’ll call me, if anything…”

“Sam? I got this. That was the plan. Right? You work your ass off at school. That’s your job here. That’s what’s going to give her a good life. I’ll do what needs to be done. She’s my kid, Sam. And she’s no mistake.”

“Just like when you were raising me?”

Dean snorted quietly. “Dad helped.”

“Sometimes.” Sam took a long breath. “Dean? Thank you. For everything. For never making me feel like I was a burden then, and not making me feel like one now. You never got angry about this. Not once. You just...planned. Dealt with it. Figured out what Lea wanted, what I needed, and worked it all out. Lea didn’t want to terminate, but she also didn’t want anything to do with raising a kid. I-I worked so hard to go away to school. And I would have given it all up, but...Just thank you. Thank you isn’t enough.”

The older man watched the newborn sleeping peacefully, and he smiled. “This isn’t what I ever wanted, man. But that’s all right. It’s what I want now. You couldn’t tear her from me now. I’d rip apart anyone who tried. Even you. So go do what you need to do, and I’m going to do what she needs me to do.”

It was just as well that Ellie didn’t let him sleep three hours in a row for the first few days. Every time his eyes closed for more than a couple minutes, he dreamed of the fire. Dreams he hadn’t had for years had begun resurfacing about a month before Ellie was born. Dreams of Ellie’s grandmother going up in smoke. And he knew why. Ellie’s mother was about to do the same, as soon as the child came. Just like Sam, this child would grow up without a mother, and Dean would have to be everything for her. Just like Sam.

He had read more books and watched more educational films in the past six months than he ever had in high school. Sometimes he came across a bit of advice that made him cringe and wish someone had told him that back when it was Sam he was caring for.

And here she was. Tiny, sweet, healthy. His.

He carried her constantly.

The old nurse had given him the advice which rang most true in his head. “People will tell you to let her cry. And sometimes you may have to, so you can take care of yourself. But there’s no way to spoil a newborn, honey, not just by loving her. If it feels right to hold her, hold her. She needs that to feel safe. If you make her work it out on her own, she just learns to be afraid of the world. Instead, let her feel comforted by Daddy’s strength and warmth, till she learns her own. That’s how they learn to be brave and strong, and how to love right, when someone is brave and strong for her, and she can feel loved and safe. People sometimes say it makes them weak to be held too much. It’s the opposite. You can’t be brave if you’ve never felt safe first.”

Her words played as whispers in his ear when he needed them. “Ellie?” he murmured to her when she cried. “You’re safe, baby. Okay? Daddy’s got you. Daddy’s always got you.”

He couldn’t always make it better. But he ran through the checklist in his head, as calmly as he could, each time.

Dry and clean. Fed. Warm. Not too hot. Not scared, not trapped. Not hurting. Dry and clean. Fed. Warm…

She slept in his arms while he rocked in the chair, watching sports with the volume muted. When he had to, he placed her in the bassinet which sat right next to his bed, so he could let her hold onto his hand, and hear his sounds and smell him nearby. He slept with his arm hanging off the bed, fingers dangling into the bassinet, and that seemed to work for a few hours at least. Then they would be up and changing again, feeding, cleaning and rocking. The days became smears in Dean’s memory.

Then there was Sam.

Relief washed over him when the car pulled up and dropped his brother off. Sam barely acknowledged the driver as he paid, then jogged toward them. His eyes filled with tears, but he smiled wide. “Hey!” he cooed softly. “Hey, Ellie!” He looked up at Dean with a helpless laugh. “I don’t even know how to…”

Dean placed her in Sam’s arms gently. He sighed. “Brace her neck. Put your hand under her head without putting any pressure-There.” He smirked wearily. “She looks even littler in your hands.”

Sam’s laugh was full of delight now. “She’s so tiny! Ellie, you’re so tiny!”

“Shh!”

But the child began to cry immediately, and Sam’s eyes widened, so Dean hurried to take her back. He noticed the barely hidden terror in Sam’s face.

“It’s okay. She’s tired. Come on. Bring your stuff in and get settled. Then you can rock her a while and get to know her while I crash in my bunk for a few hours. Go wash your hands.”

Sam’s smile was weirdly fond.

“What?” Dean snapped.

“You’re good at this, aren’t you?”

“Dude, I’m barely keeping this thing alive.”

But Sam kept smiling at him. “No. You’re good at this. I’m impressed.”

Dean snorted, but something in his heart warmed with the praise. To have the first kid he had attempted to rear feel confident in his ability to do the same with the second...It was gratifying in a way Dean had never felt before.

He gave Sam some time to settle in, as promised. He took a quick shower and ate the sandwich Dean had readied for him. Then he had planted himself in the rocking chair and put his hands up happily. Dean couldn’t help laughing at him. “Okay, okay. El? Baby, this is Uncle Sammy. He’s going to hang out with us for two weeks, and Daddy’s going to get some real sleep sometimes. Okay? He’s a good guy. I promise. He’s been looking forward to today a long time. And so have I. Because sleep.”

Sam received the child as delicately as was possible for an enormous college freshman. “What do I do if she cries?”

Dean sighed. He went over the checklist, but his brain was fogging. The moment Ellie was out of his arms, his mind gave up its battle against sleep. He grunted at Sam, then backed into his bedroom. “Just sit there and rock. Please. If she doesn’t need anything, just...just sit there. You got your e-reader and the remote for the tv, and...just rock.”

Sam was smirking at him. “Okay. You better lie down before you fall down.”

“Joke’s on you, jackass. I’m already falling.”

His brother laughed quietly, and Dean stumbled to the bed. He didn’t close the door all the way. Just in case.


End file.
